The Old Spaghetti Factory (Whistler) — Restaurant in Whistler Resort Municipality

It has been quite a while since I visited the mothership at Gastown, Vancouver whose claim to fame was its location in a refurbished railway car complete with a short length of track underneath. So I was excited to come across an offspring in Whistler BC. The restaurant was busy but not jam packed and it took only a 5-10 minutes to get a table. It was Father’s Day so I had expected it to be busier than it was. However Whistler was cold and raining on and off so there were very few people out and about in the village. Make a note of the restaurant’s name and set your expectations accordingly. No gourmet dining or experiencing unique tastes. Just classic spaghetti and meatball around which all varieties of pasta dishes revolved. I stuck with the star of the menu, namely the aforementioned dish. There was so much food on the plate I could eat only half of it. The meatballs were tasty, with a bit of a zing in the flavour, which thankfully was not due to some hot spice that seems so very popular these days (unfortunately even very mild hot spice is incompatible with my living). The price of the meal is extremely reasonable, especially for Whistler and the sky high prices charged by most of its restaurants. This is especially so when the price of the entree includes sour dough bread, a choice between a salad or soup at the beginning and some delightful spumoni ice cream after. My mango smoothie was $4.50 which is about half of what you would pay elsewhere. Yet it was made with real life-ice cream and was delicious. The restaurant is hidden away somewhat in a basement that you have to partly walk through a building and down some stairs to get to. It would be easy not to know it exists and I came across it purely by chance when I glanced at a fairly small sign indicating its existence up at street level. When you enter the restaurant you discover it is a lot bigger than the entrance would suggest. Lots of wood inside, giving the place a warm, comfortable and relaxing feeling, which was especially appreciated in such inclement weather. Staff were very pleasant and efficient. The only negative was when I asked for the leftovers to be put in a container, the waiter just left an open cardboard box on the table for us to scoop the food into. I am more used to the food being taken away by service staff and then returned inside a neatly sealed closed box without having to deal with all that potentially messy scooping around. And for those interested, at the entrance there was a “we are hiring sign” offering, among other things, select $3 entrees for staff. Food that good and so cheap, as well as a summer living in Whistler, seems like a pretty good opportunity for someone (the same sign also stated a job at the restaurant offered the opportunity for a person to own their own restaurant one day. Hmmm….not impossible I guess but maybe stretching things a bit?). I would highly recommend this restaurant (for the food and atmosphere, not necessarily as a place to work!). Update: Since this review was posted I have been informed that having to fill your own doggy bag was introduced as a preventative health measure during Covid and most restaurants now continue with this practice. As an aside general comment (not specific to this restaurant) while cut back in service made during the crisis was justified, that is no longer the case. Customers are in effect paying the old price for a reduction in service. In a fair world lesser services should result in a corresponding reduction in price. Of course that will...

My family and I dined here tonight 12/24/22. The waiter seemed friendly at first but dropped the ball. First off….He did not ask us what 1st course we wanted (ie. Soup or salad). As many who have dined at this chain before know that the meals come with an “all included” salad or soup, desert and coffee. Well the waiter took our orders for the main course and 2 appetizers ( calamari and fries) but didn’t ask us about what soup or salad we liked. We were all puzzled as to why he didn’t ask. I reminded him of the soup and salad that we weren’t offered when he finally appeared and brought us the main course. He then took our orders for those but didn’t come back with anything until we had almost finished the main course. It was a very long time as we were all trying to stall eating the main course so we could first have our appetizers. In my opinion making the salad and soup orders should have been a HIGH PRIORITY since he had mistakenly served us the main courses first instead asking us about the soup/salad.

He also forgot to bring us the 2 appetizers (fries and calamari) that we ordered with our main course. When I reminded him of the 2 appetizers and the soup/salads, he first brought the calamari and fries cold several minutes after already serving us the main course. He then brought us the salads and soups so late that most of us had already finished the majority of the main course. I shouldn’t have to remind the waiter to bring us the food we ordered. When I asked him about it he said “I’ll see where they are?” That doesn’t make sense! Did he lose them somewhere?!?

On another side note, the tiny water glasses that were provided for us were never asked about or refilled and I just had bad vibes from the waiter in general. My notions seemed to be correct…..

When he brought us the soups/salads ,very late, I kindly asked him if I could have a little more spaghetti and he said “No” very rudely and in a condescending manner. Why would any server say No?!?!? I am a paying customer who asked for another portion of food. I didn’t indicate that I wanted it for free.

The food was served in the wrong order and cold with a waiter who could care less about our dining experience. At this point, I asked to speak the manager.

The manager came by a few minutes later, heard me out, agreed with my assessment, kind of apologized and adjusted my bill. I was still very disappointed by the waiter’s attitude and that the manager didn’t really address how service could be improved.

This is the worst service I’ve personally experienced at a restaurant in recent history. My family agreed that it was very odd how this meal became a total mess due to the waiter being careless, lazy, even arrogant and showing no remorse— No apologies from the waiter after the fact either. We were a party of 8 people (5 adults and 3 kids) and perhaps this was too challenging for him. It kind of ruined our trip to Whistler and therefore I would not recommend eating at...

I am actually really sad and frustrated that I have to give such a poor review of The Old Spaghetti Factory in Whistler. My husband and I visit Whistler quite often and The Old Spaghetti Factory is/was our "go to" restaurant. Normally, the service is good, the food is hot and tasty and you get a lot of food for your money.

Yesterday, my Husband and I took our two year old for a day trip to Whistler for the first time and we had planned to eat lunch at The Old Spaghetti Factory as soon we we got there.

We lined up behind one other party at the door at exactly 12:00. We were expecting them to be busy for the lunch hour rush, however, including us, there was one large party and maybe 7 other tables with other guests. The restaurant was actually very quiet.

We were seated at our table and my husband noticed butter that was smeared on his side of the table. He wiped it up with a napkin and we didn't complain. However, noting that the restaurant opened at 11 ( an hour prior to our visit), has us wondering if other guests left early as we did, or if the table wasn't cleaned from the night before.

Our waitress took our order after 10 minutes and we received our drinks and salads shortly after as well as bread as usual.

Good thing we had the bread because we ended up waiting for 50 minutes before deciding to get our lunch somewhere else. Our food never came. Nobody else's food other than starter soups and salads came either! Everyone just seemed to just accept that they would sit for hours for their lunch to arrive? If it wasn't for the endless bread, there is no way our two year old would have sat as well as he did. We were all very hungry from our drive.

The waitress never offered to refill our drinks, explain or apologize for the unexceptable wait time when she came by with our second loaf of bread.

We aren't ones for just getting up and leaving a restaurant. It takes a lot for us to make that decision. We chose to eat somewhere else at this point, because waiting for our food for nearly an hour after ordering is completely unexceptable.

We stopped at the door to offer and pay for our drinks and salad. Our waitress ended up greeting us at the door and said " they never brought you your food?" Which was a surprise to us that she would ask us such a question when she was our server and should have known this already? She told us she would take care of our bill and we left hungry, annoyed and very disappointed.

If they keep this up, they won't be open for much longer. We noticed that the same tables that had people seated at them when we arrived, also hadn't received their meals.

After grabbing a quick bite at Zoggs, we noticed that it was pretty clear The Old Spaghetti Factory was the only restaurant not busy at lunch.

Note, this was on a Saturday.

The chances of us going back to this location...